Our Stories in Our Hands is a community culture and oral history project led by the Chinese Welfare Association Northern Ireland (CWA NI), with support from Belfast City Council’s Bank of Ideas 2026 – Celebrating Together programme.

Launched in August 2026 alongside Fleadh Cheoil in Belfast, the project brought people together through the celebration of Chinese and Irish cultural traditions. Against the backdrop of one of the city’s major cultural events, it created opportunities for people from different backgrounds to share stories, celebrate heritage and build new connections across communities.

At the heart of Our Stories in Our Hands are personal stories and lived experiences. The project invites members of the Chinese community, alongside people from other cultural backgrounds, to share their memories, migration journeys, family histories and experiences of living, working and building a life in Northern Ireland.

Through these stories, we document the experiences of different generations of Chinese people in Northern Ireland, while also making space for a wider range of community voices to be heard. Each story offers a personal perspective on family, identity, belonging and the connections people develop with the communities and places around them.

Through oral history, story collection, community engagement, cultural activities and digital archiving, the project creates spaces where people of different ages and backgrounds can come together, listen to one another and share experiences.

These individual stories form part of the wider, evolving memory of Belfast and Northern Ireland. By recording and preserving them, Our Stories in Our Hands helps ensure that voices and experiences rooted in everyday community life are not lost, but remain accessible for future generations.

Everyone has a story, and together these stories shape our community.

CWA NI gratefully acknowledges the generous funding support of Belfast City Council through the Bank of Ideas 2026 – Celebrating Together programme, together with match funding from Queen’s University Belfast, which helped make this meaningful community project possible, and thanks all community members, artists and volunteers who contributed to the project.

“Our Stories in Our Hands”（我們的故事·手中的传承）是由北愛爾蘭華人福利協會（CWA NI）主導的一項社區文化與口述歷史項目，並獲得 Belfast City Council Bank of Ideas 2026 – Celebrating Together 計劃的资金支持。

項目於 2026年8月 配合 Fleadh Cheoil 傳統愛爾蘭音樂節在 Belfast 舉行。藉着這個城市充滿音樂、文化與社區交流的時刻，項目透過華人及愛爾蘭傳統文化的分享與慶祝，將不同背景的人們聚集在一起，讓文化傳承、個人故事和社區之間的連結自然地交織起來。

Our Stories in Our Hands 以個人故事與真實生活經歷為核心，邀請華人及來自不同文化背景的社區成員分享自己的生活經歷、家庭記憶、遷徙歷程，以及在北愛爾蘭生活、工作、成長和建立歸屬感的故事。

透過這些故事，我們記錄不同世代華人在北愛爾蘭生活、奮鬥和融入社區的經歷，同時聆聽來自其他文化背景居民的聲音。從一個人的故事出發，我們希望呈現個人與家庭、社區和城市之間逐步建立的連結，讓那些存在於日常生活和個人記憶中的經歷能夠被更多人看見、聽見和理解。

項目透過故事採集、口述歷史、社區參與、文化藝術活動及數碼歸檔等不同形式，為不同年齡和文化背景的人們創造相聚、交流和互相聆聽的空間。這些真實而獨特的故事，不僅反映個人與家庭的生命歷程，也共同構成北愛爾蘭多元社區持續發展中的集體記憶。

Fleadh Cheoil 為項目提供了一個特別的文化平台。透過華人文化與愛爾蘭傳統文化在同一空間中的相遇與交流，Our Stories in Our Hands 不只是一次文化活動，也成為一次讓不同社區彼此認識、分享經歷和建立連結的機會，並為所有參與者留下珍貴而難忘的共同回憶。

每個人都有自己的故事，而這些故事共同塑造着我們的社區。

透過 Our Stories in Our Hands，我們希望讓更多個人經歷得到記錄、分享與保存，讓今天的生活故事成為未來可以被重新發現、理解和珍惜的社區記憶。

CWA NI 特別感謝 Belfast City Council 透過 Bank of Ideas 2026 – Celebrating Together 計劃為本項目提供撥款支持，亦衷心感謝 Queen’s University Belfast 提供的配對資助 (match funding), 以及所有分享故事、參與活動和協助項目的社區成員、藝術家與志願者。